SEC Wrests Admissions in Settlement of Falcone Case
ATTORNEY: MURIELLE STEVEN WALSH
POMERANTZ MONITOR, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013
The JPMorgan “London Whale” case is not the first time the SEC has insisted on admissions of wrongdoing as part of its settlement agreements. A few weeks earlier, for example, the SEC secured admissions as part of its settlement of charges against Hedge Fund manager Philip Falcone.
The current push to insist on admissions of wrongdoing in these settlements can probably be traced to November of 2011, when Judge Rakoff of the Southern District New York famously rejected Citigroup’s $285 million settlement with the SEC, primarily because it did not contain any admission of wrongdoing by the bank. The judge found that the deal was "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest." Judge Rakoff has been highly critical of settlements that allow defendants to neither “admit nor deny,” and has called them “a stew of confusion and hypocrisy unworthy of such a proud agency as the S.E.C.”
Judge Rakoff was criticized as overstepping his bounds and challenging the authority of the SEC. Wall Street interests argued that admissions of wrongdoing in SEC settlements would encourage private investor litigation. Others pronounced that a requirement for admissions would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the SEC to settle cases. The Second Circuit is now reviewing whether, in fact, the court went too far.
But regardless of the outcome of that appeal, Judge Rakoff’s opinion has had profound repercussions. When Mary Jo White was first appointed as the new SEC chair, she announced that henceforth the Commission would require admissions of wrongdoing as a condition to settlement in certain situations.
Judge Rakoff’s colleague in the Southern District, Judge Marrero, recently approved a settlement between SAC Advisors and the SEC that also had no admissions of wrongdoing. However, he conditioned his approval on a finding by the Second Circuit in the Citigroup matter that district courts lack the authority to reject SEC settlements solely because of “admit or deny” policy. If the Second Circuit does not make such a finding, SAC will be back on the hook.
The recent $18 million civil settlement between hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone and securities regulators is a case in point. Falcone and his hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Partners, had been accused of engaging in an illegal “short squeeze” to force short-sellers to sell distressed, high yield bonds at inflated prices, and favoring certain investors over others when granting redemption requests. An earlier agreement reached between Falcone and the SEC’s enforcement staff did not contain any admissions of wrongdoing. In a rare move, the SEC commissioners rejected the agreement and sent the parties back to the table. The new deal contains Falcon’s admissions of underlying facts of alleged improper behavior, specifically, that he had acted “recklessly” with regard to several market transactions. It does not, however, include admissions of specific securities law violations. Obviously, the facts can potentially be used as fodder in private litigation – in this case, an admission of reckless conduct has important ramifications for fraud claims.
At the same time, Falcone won’t be limiting his legal options in other lawsuits that may follow on the heels of this settlement. As noted by James Cox, a law professor at Duke University School of Law, the admitted facts “may be helpful, but not perfectly helpful, to follow-on litigation."